Comparison of Node Ordering Modules

Comparison of Node Ordering Modules

The standard ordering for lists of nodes in Drupal is first by the "sticky" attribute and then by the created date. Many content modules have some facility to change this ordering, but only for their content type. The modules described here attempt to provide a more controllable ordering in a variety of ways.

Feature	Weight	Nodeorder	Nodequeue	DraggableViews	Flag Weights
Drupal-related
Drupal 6.x
Drupal 5.x
Drupal 4.7.x
Last official release	2009-Apr-27	2009-Mar-04	2009-Aug-27	2009-Aug-29	2008-Oct-10
Documentation	Handbook README.txt	README.txt	Handbook README.txt	Handbook README.txt	Handbook README.txt
Demonstration	No	No	No	Demo	No
Architecture	Sticky-encoding	Adds a field to term_node table		Views style plugin	Add-on to Flags module
Additional database tables	0 - uses node table's sticky column	0 - adds a field to term_node table	Yes	2 by default	0 - adds to flag module table
Services provided
Reordering page	Uses core node admin page	Drag and drop	Drag and Drop interface for D6, Custom Javascript interface for D5	Any view	API only, or see integrating with draggable views
Feature blocks	N/A	None		Inherited from views	None
Supports Managing Translated Nodes			Yes, either by tying translations to the original or by ignoring translations and letting admins manage them as separate nodes
Security	Drupal core, 'assign node weight', 'administer nodes', 'administer site configuration'	Drupal core	Separates permissions for ordering nodes from editing them	Views permission, plus 'Allow Reordering'
Settings	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A
Views support
Translation template supplied					N/A

Weight Design

The Weight module uses the "sticky" attribute by altering its value to include the node's weight. This has the advantage of making the standard node ordering automatic with no further changes. The disadvantage is that modules that check the sticky attribute for 0 or 1 (FALSE or TRUE) may not work properly, although the module will decode the two values upon a full node load.

Nodeorder Design

Using taxonomy, individual nodes can be classified multiple ways. See
Taxonomy: A way to organize content for a comprehensive description. To continue the analogy from there, Nodeorder allows you to say that "this node should appear towards the top of the list of composers but towards the bottom of the list of seventeenth century."

Upon installation, Nodeorder adds a column called weight_in_tid to the term_node table. On each Vocabulary's edit page, Nodeorder adds an "Orderable" checkbox. If this is checked, users with the correct permissions will be able to order nodes within any of the terms in that vocabulary.

Nodequeue Design

Provides a simple UI to manually order any queue. Additionally, it allows nodes to be added and removed from queues without needing edit permissions to the node. Nodes can be added to queues either from a queue management tab or by links on the node teaser. Nodequeue provides a robust Smartqueue API so module developers can create customized queues that are specific to particular users, or to Organic Groups.

For more info please see the Nodequeue project page

DraggableViews Design

Rows of a view can be moved via drag-and-drop to build hierarchical structures. Child nodes of parents can be hidden via javascript. Paging is fully supported since rows can be dragged from one page to another.

The default implementation uses a database table to save the information. Additional handlers can be implemented to save the information elsewhere. Currently there are two additional implementations: CCK-Handler and Flag-Weights-Handler.

Flag Weights Design

Flag Weights module is an add-on to the excellent Flag module, that adds the ability to set a weight against each flagged item. The module does not provide any UI as such, other than integrating with Draggable Views module to allow drag'n'drop reordering or flagged content. This might be used for prioritising a wishlist, etc.